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Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

How do we know what we know? Is reason a reliable
source of knowledge—or is it superseded by mystical revelation or
emotional intuition? Can we be certain about our knowledge—or must we
always remain in doubt?

Questions such as these are the province of epistemology—the branch of
philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. And the answers depend
crucially on one central issue in epistemology: that of the nature and
validity of concepts. If our concepts refer to things existing in
reality, then our knowledge is real and reliable. If they do not,
however—if instead they are imaginary constructs adopted by authority or by
social convention, then our knowledge is baseless and inherently undependable.

“Since man’s knowledge,” explains Ayn Rand, “is gained and held in conceptual
form, the validity of man’s knowledge depends on the validity of concepts. But
concepts are abstractions or universals, and everything that man perceives
is particular, concrete. What is the relationship between abstractions and
concretes? To what precisely do concepts refer in reality?”

Rand answers these questions in Introduction to Objectivist
Epistemology, a monograph on the Objectivist theory of concepts.
Published in 1967, the book presents Rand’s systematic analysis of the nature
of concepts and the process by which they are formed by the human mind. It
elaborates in detail Rand’s historic and highly original solution to the
“problem of universals”—the question of what precisely concepts refer to in
reality. This solution is the foundation of Rand’s distinctive account of
objectivity and the source of the name she gave to her philosophy:
Objectivism.

The book includes a brilliant companion essay by philosopher Leonard
Peikoff on “The Analytic-Synthetic
Dichotomy“—a destructive false alternative that has dominated modern
philosophy and wrought havoc on the ability of today’s thinkers to understand
the nature of knowledge.

Also included in the expanded second edition, published in 1990, is an
extensive appendix with additional philosophical material. This previously
unpublished material is based on a series of epistemology workshops which Rand
conducted from 1969 to 1971, which provided an opportunity for philosophers and
other academics to ask her questions about her theory of concepts. Transcribed
and edited for publication after her death, these sessions show Rand in
philosophic action, elaborating on the meaning and implications of her theory
and addressing questions on such wide-ranging topics as induction and the
scientific method, the nature of definitions, how we form concepts of
numbers, and more.